Pain and Pricks
by CaitlinMF
Summary: A semi-short series on Clark being unable to deal with Lana's repsonse to him telling her his secret.
1. My Tourniquet

This is a two-part series, originally written as one story (My Tourniquet), but a sequel (The Rose) was created after the feedback by reviewers became inspiring.  
  
Author: Caitlin  
  
Rating: PG-13 to R  
  
Spoilers: Rosetta Characters: Clark, Lana  
  
Feedback: Good or bad, I'd love to hear what you think  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned, nor the song used. They are clearly the property of Smallville, the WB, Gough and Milar, the band Evanescence, and all of those other important people  
  
Authors Notes: This story is set post-Rosetta. Therefore nothing is known about Jor-El, Clark's destiny, etc. Also noted, is that Clark/Lana have not gotten together yet  
  
tour-ni-quet n. A device, typically a tightly encircling bandage, used to check bleeding by temporarily stopping the flow of blood through a large artery in a limb. In this case: The only person able to hold him together.  
  
(lyrics shown in * *)  
  
~~~  
  
'Is this really the right thing?'  
  
*I tried to kill the pain  
  
But only brought more*  
  
Contemplating it, he came up with a wide variety of thoughts.  
  
There was probably the largest burden of them all - his abilities - The one thing that made him different from any other being. Extreme speed and strength; x-ray and heat vision; as well as the occasional floating spells. The abilities alienated him and set him apart from others, and they didn't come as much of a shock considering his origin - his native planet of Krypton. Simply put, if the inhabitants of the planet Earth were to ever know the actuality of the dark secret he buried deep inside the very depths of his soul, Clark Kent would be indicted to be nothing but a freak.  
  
*I lay dying  
  
And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal*  
  
Unique and special were words used by his parents - and no, not his biological parents. The middle-aged couple in which he had supposedly come upon that fateful October day - the day that changed the town of Smallville forever. It was now a town marked as the meteor capitol of the world, complete with its never-ending parade of weirdoes that all possessed some sort of in-human power. And Clark?, He was the 'biggest freak of them all', or so Lana had so eloquently stated.  
  
*I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming  
  
Am I too lost to be saved  
  
Am I too lost?*  
  
Lana . . . the very girl who haunted his dreams both day and night. Formerly residing just a short way down the gravel road from the Kent Farm that had separated the two teens their whole lives until recently, Lana Lang had been known as the all-hailing, crowned queen of Smallville High. She was beautiful, intelligent, caring, and sweet - in Clark's eyes, pure perfection. That is until earlier that very same day . . .  
  
***  
  
Sitting in his loft, Clark gazed upon the brilliant blue sky, which spanned over the expanse of the farmland visible for miles up high in the barn. To anyone, the sight could define perfection, peace, and tranquillity. And to Clark, it was just that.  
  
Footsteps could be heard on the wooden stairs - a sound that snapped Clark from his calm reverie.  
  
"Lana," he said a bit surprised after turning towards the source of the welcome disturbance.  
  
"Hi Clark," came the soft reply from the beautiful girl.  
  
*My God my tourniquet  
  
Return to me salvation*  
  
"What brings you here?" Clark asked her after considering the possible reason of her visit in his mind.  
  
"Well, umm . . . I wanted to ask you something," Lana voiced to him once she was seated on the old couch across from the open window in which Clark was now standing at.  
  
"Sure, what is it?" Clark pondered, looking into her almond-shaped eyes which portrayed many bright colours of greens and browns. Her eyes, for whatever reason, seemed startlingly troubled at the moment.  
  
"You see . . . I was thinking - about you. And there are some things in that past which I cannot make sense of, and I desperately need to get them cleared up," Lana said a matter-of-factly.  
  
*My God my tourniquet  
  
Return to me salvation*  
  
Clark shifted nervously from his place still by the window ledge. "What kind of things?" he questioned her finally after a few moments silence.  
  
"Okay, well I've always known you hold some deep piece of knowledge inside of you - something that I think very few know of. Clark, you know you can trust me with anything," Lana stated.  
  
*Do you remember me  
  
Lost for so long*  
  
"Lana . . ." Clark spoke up, sensing what this conversation was evolving to.  
  
"No, Clark - let me speak. I know that whatever you're hiding is something you feel you can't tell me, but you can. Please Clark, tell me; does it have anything to do with what happened the day of the twister last year? With the reason why you always seem to be at the right place at the right time, constantly saving lives of others? Or why you always seem to run off in the middle of something?" Lana inquired.  
  
*Will you be on the other side  
  
Or will you forget me*  
  
Clark felt his stomach doing rolls as she questioned him. He needed to make her stop for he would only end up hurting her if he told her the truth. "No, Lana - please, stop." He said, trying to speak as gently as he could.  
  
"I won't stop, Clark. Why won't you tell me these things? I've had enough of all these excuses, always blowing me off when I ask for you to explain something. I need the truth - the real truth - and now, Clark," Lana demanded, the fierceness of her words almost causing a chill to crawl up Clark's spine.  
  
*I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming  
  
Am I too lost to be saved  
  
Am I too lost?*  
  
He knew that she had obviously planned on confronting him like this for a while by the way her words seemed to be so planned out. But then again, she had been interrogating him for quite some time. He knew this was going to come eventually, but why now? Why when he already had everything else in his life so disarrayed? "Lana, I - I can't tell you," he finally said to her.  
  
"Why Clark? Why can't you?" she yelled at me.  
  
He cringed at her harsh words. "Because if I told you, I'd hurt you. And I don't want to cause you any pain, Lana. Please, you have to believe me," he pleaded with her, looking straight at her as she stood be fore him now.  
  
"I'm strong, Clark. What's causing me pain is that you don't trust me to tell me the truth," Lana revealed, still with an icy edge to her customarily harmonic voice.  
  
"I don't know - I don't think it'd be right," Clark trailed off.  
  
"Tell me, Clark. I need to know, and there's no better time than the present," she recounted.  
  
*My God my tourniquet  
  
Return to me salvation*  
  
Considering it, Clark decided that maybe she deserved to know. And heck, if his life was already crumbling before him, why not add to the torment? She may be the one thing keeping him sane, but it wasn't very fair for her to be left in the dark went so many hints of his origin were leaking out. "Fine, but you uh - might want to sit down," he said to her, the reluctance of his resolve still thick in his voice.  
  
Obeying, Lana sat on the trunk in front of the couch, and looked up at Clark expectantly.  
  
"Okay . . . I don't really know how to say this calmly. I guess it's pretty straightforward. Lana, I'm not from around here - meaning, this planet. Truth is, I came to Smallville with the meteor shower," Clark declared, barely being able to keep eye contact with her as he spoke.  
  
"Wh-what?" Lana uttered quietly.  
  
Seeing she wasn't going to say much else, Clark was confident to continue on. "I have these abilities; I can do certain things that people on Earth can't. For instance, say you wanted a lily . . ." Clark began. There was a sonic boom and a large rush of wind, and within mere seconds, Clark was standing be fore Lana - a delicate white lily in his hand, freshly picked from his mother's garden.  
  
Lana was aghast. She knew the truth, but yet she now did not want to. He had mentioned the meteor shower - the event that had changed Smallville and the lives of many, including her own. Then, it came to her . . . the meteor that hit her parents, killing them instantly; the meteor shower it arrived in; the shower that Clark brought with him when arriving on this planet . . . "It's all your fault," she uttered suddenly. "All of it - all of the people here, the destruction - it's because of you,"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Clark asked her, a fair bit confused of what it was she was accusing him of.  
  
"You're the reason all those weirdoes kept popping up all over; the reason why innocent people were killed . . . my parents were killed. And it's all your fault . . ." Lana declared defiantly.  
  
Taken aback, Clark almost felt himself stumble. This wasn't supposed to happen - Lana was supposed to accept him . . . right? Clearing his throat of the onslaught of sudden shock, Clark took a shaky step forward towards her. "No, Lana - wait, you don't understand,"  
  
"NO!" she yelled at him, "I do understand. And don't you dare take another step closer to me, you . . . you . . . freak!!" she put a dominant emphasis on the last word.  
  
Immediately, Clark recoiled. "But . . ." he began in a voice almost too soft to be heard.  
  
*My God my tourniquet  
  
Return to me salvation*  
  
Lana stood up with a start and started to walk towards the stairs of the loft. She stopped, turned back to him and said; "I don't ever want to speak to you or see you or have anything to do with you ever again, Clark Kent. In my opinion, you're the biggest freak of them all,". And with that, Lana gave him a disgusted look, then moved down the stairs and left the barn.  
  
Clark stood in stunned silence watching her now-tense figure retreat. A moment later, he fell to the floor of the loft, curling his legs up to his chest and burying his head in his knees.  
  
***  
  
She had rejected him. He had finally told her the truth - the one thing she had spoke of needing to know for so long - and she had fiercely answered with the words he least wished to hear. Clark had always blamed himself for the turbulent lives of those in Smallville. His parents and friends had always told him that it was not true, that it was not his fault. But Clark had never really believed it. And hearing Lana solidly tell him that his assumptions were correct - that he was to blame for everything - made it all so very final.  
  
Everyone would be better off if there was no Clark Kent.  
  
*My wounds cry for the grave*  
  
He always knew that he was different from everyone else. When he was a child, his parents hadn't told him much - just that he needed to be very careful not to let anyone know about the things he could do. Never being allowed to participate in the activities other children took part in, to never go out for the school's sports teams, to get involved with whatever game was being played at recesses. He was never permitted to do much of anything that would involve there being even the tiniest chance that someone would find out about him and his abilities. The circumstances had set him apart from others his age. Instead, Clark spent most of his spare time working around the farm with his father - trying to force the harsh reality of always being an outsider, out of his mind - or, sitting up in the loft of the barn where he would gaze up at the stars and imagine living a life where he wouldn't have to hide who he was and where he could be free to be himself.  
  
No one could understand what it was like to be who he was. To be the soul survivor of his home planet and there not being a single other person in existence like himself. His parents tried to make him fit in and feel like he was a true part of their family whether he was an adopted child from another planet or not. They always did their best to make him comfortable. But even Lex, who grew up in a love-less family full of deception and control, could not ever be able to understand what it was like to be Clark.  
  
To be totally and completely alone.  
  
*My soul cries for deliverance*  
  
There was no meaning for him now. He was not wanted. Lana had been his solace - the one thing he could still hold on to so he could be reminded that he was thought of as a normal being by at least someone. He found comfort in just being near her and being able to speak with her. When everything else in his life was shattered, Lana had been there with no explanation for his sorrowful state ever needed to be spoke of. But that had changed. The girl that had kept him sane and grounded had deserted him and turned on him in his time of need without a second glance.  
  
So this was it.  
  
Clark Kent was no longer needed in this town, this country, this planet, this universe. He was not needed anywhere. Being nothing but a burden to those around him.  
  
'Yes, this is the right thing.' He thought to himself.  
  
*Will I be denied Christ*  
  
Seated on the floor of his loft, Clark opened the small lead box, revealing its contents before his eyes. The object immediately began to glow a brilliant green colour. He could feel his muscles clenching throughout his body; the blood in his veins pulsating the same green colour; his head pounding; stomach twisting. He could feel pain.  
  
Removing the rock from the box, he held it within his right hand - gingerly at first. He then squeezed his eyes shut as the pain intensified as he held the rock tighter and tighter in his fist. His hand was now fully around the rock - drawing all the power of hurt out of it, willing the pain to overcome him indefinitely.  
  
*Tourniquet*  
  
He lay back on the floor, and held the rock closer to himself - by the very depths of his shattered heart and empty soul.  
  
Darkness then washed over him.  
  
As he faded . . . into oblivion.  
  
*My suicide*  
  
. . . To Be Continued . . . 


	2. The Rose

The Rose  
  
~~~  
  
Funny thing about a rose. It has such vast differences from stem to petals. On one end, you can be pricked, leaving you with a sting of pain. Yet on the other end, you can be stunned in awe of such vibrant perfection. But pricks or not, many are captured by the simple beauty of a rose.  
  
It was the rain that fell down in sheets over the cemetery and the large crowd that stood there - the crowd that had gathered in one of their residents' memory. Clark Kent had always been a caring individual. He was always there to aid others in any way he possibly could. Labeled as the town hero by many, Clark never cared much about himself. As long as the occupants of Smallville, Kansas were alive and well, he was happy - or so they thought.  
  
No one had ever really pondered much about how having the burden of saving a whole town would hurt Clark. They had pictured him as a polite young man, willing to help without a single complaint. No one ever asked for his aid - he just came and did what he did best.  
  
So many lives he had saved . . . and now no one could ever truly thank him for his actions.  
  
Because Clark Kent was dead.  
  
Lana Lang watched Mr. and Mrs. Kent hold each other close, weeping over their deceased son. The whole town was crying as they stood before the grave - everyone, except Lana.  
  
No, Lana Lang was a young woman who was now overcome by guilt. She would no longer allow herself to cry; to be happy; to feel. For she blamed herself. Clark Kent had committed suicide because she had abandoned him. He had poured his heart out, and she stomped on it with every inch of her being. The words she had spoken;  
  
'I don't ever want to speak to you or see you or have anything to do with you ever again, Clark Kent. In my opinion, you're the biggest freak of them all!'  
  
Those words had pained Clark in more ways than one.  
  
When she imagined Clark now, she could only see the look of anguish on his face as she yelled at him, and then his prone figure when she had discovered his corpse in the barn loft a short time later.  
  
***  
  
Lana walked from her car across the barnyard, and into the barn that sat on the Kent Farm.  
  
'I shouldn't have done that,' she thought.  
  
Lana had sat upon the windmill at Chandler's field, a place that was once special to her and Clark, and had contemplated over what had taken place earlier that same day up in Clark's loft. He hadn't meant to hurt her. He was simply telling her what she had asked of him. That he was an alien. But was he really to blame for her parents' death? Most likely not. He had been three when he arrived on this planet. What toddler could control a meteor shower at that age, whether he was an Earthling or not?  
  
Lana was angry with herself for reacting the way she had. She knew that Clark had always acted very closed off emotionally from most everyone. He only occasionally ever opened up to her, but even then it was only small tidbits of what was bothering him. She had promised herself not to push him - he would talk to her when he was good and ready - but Lana couldn't keep that promise to herself. Yes, she had pushed him. And yes, she now regretted it.  
  
Because she loved him.  
  
Walking up the stairs in the barn, Lana just hoped it wasn't too late.  
  
It was.  
  
The sight before her shocked Lana to her very core.  
  
Clark Kent - the guy who had always been so strong, so willing - was lying upon the floor, immobile.  
  
"NO!" she screamed out, immediately knowing something was terribly wrong.  
  
She rushed forward, kneeling beside him. His skin was ashen and had a slight greenish tinge to it. Timidly, Lana reached out a hand and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck.  
  
There was no pulse.  
  
His chest was not rising.  
  
He was dead.  
  
"No . . . No . . . oh God, no. This can't be happening," Lana whispered, feeling tears gather in her eyes. "Please, not Clark . . . not him . . ." She begged to no one in particular.  
  
"It's not supposed to go like this," she murmured, "And it's all my fault . . ."  
  
Lana lay her head upon his unmoving chest - her incoherent rambling continuing on - and let her tears fall freely now, not bothering to wipe them away.  
  
Having heard a scream, Martha and Jonathan became aware of someone other than Clark being out in the barn. They rose from their place at the kitchen table in which they were reading the day's newspaper, and walked briskly out of the house, into the barn, and up the stairs - hearing someone sobbing as they went.  
  
"Oh my heavens!" Martha trembled, as she saw the sight that lay be fore her. Jonathan quickly moved opposite Lana, spotting the green rock in Clark's hand. He grabbed it quickly, and threw it to the side. He then repeated Lana's prior actions by checking Clark's pulse. After a moment, he slowly moved his hand away.  
  
"Is he . . .?" Martha managed to choke out. Raising his head, Jonathan could only offer a small nod in reply. This action, though a very small one, caused Martha to burst into heart-wrenching sobs. Jonathan rose up and moved over to her, wrapping her shaking figure in his arms, as he too held back his own tears. Their son was dead.  
  
Lana continued to lie beside Clark, holding him as close to her as possible. She then rose onto her knees and looked up to the older couple who still stood embracing be fore her.  
  
"I'm sorry - it's all my fault. I shouldn't have done it. I'm so sorry. I - " she began.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Jonathan question her, as he raised his head upon hearing the teenage girl speak.  
  
"He - he told me. About . . . about his secrets. And I - I just . . . rejected him," she answered, tears still streaming down her face.  
  
At this point, Martha's attention had been grasped. She too looked at the young Lana Lang. "He told you? . . ." was all she was able to whisper.  
  
Lana nodded in response. "It's my fault he did this. I didn't mean for it to happen - I didn't know. I just . . ." she trailed off, unable to speak no longer. Crumpling back down to the wooden floor of the loft, grief overcame her.  
  
And so the three were left. Only the faint glimmer from the clouded moon gave off dim light into the very barn which held the memories of an event which had just changed the lives of many.  
  
***  
  
Lana made no movement to wipe the rain from her face or to take cover under the umbrella a somber Pete Ross had offered her previously. Wet didn't matter no more. Nothing did.  
  
The crowd slowly dispersed as the service ended. It was but only a few moments before Lana was the only one who still stood in the vast cemetery. The rain still fell heavily as though the heavens were crying. Crying for the death of a hero.  
  
Taking a short few steps closer to the covered grave, Lana reached out and dropped a single white rose upon the ground in which her love now lay. The once elegant rose crumpled on impact. It was no longer the beautiful flower. Only small fragments of its life now remained.  
  
An intriguing flower, and though it has thorns, much of a rose is pure beauty. And even with those pricks, the rose is accepted for how it is, flaws and all. But every so often, events can occur and the rose can be looked down upon. Certain actions then follow and the rose is no more - nothing can be done about it, for it's too late.  
  
"I'm sorry, Clark."  
  
. . . The End . . . 


End file.
